80 QUESTIONS OF VIVA AND OFTEN ASKED AT THE PHD PROPOSAL

DEFENSE

40 Questions often Ask during Viva

1. Can you start by summarizing your thesis? 20. How has your view of your research topic
2. Now, can you summarize it in one sentence? changed?
3. What is the idea that binds your thesis 21. How have you evaluated your work?
together? 22. How do you know that your findings are
4. What motivated and inspired you to carry out correct?
this research? 23. What are the strongest/weakest parts of your
5. What are the main issues and debates in this work?
subject area? 24. What would have improved your work?
6. Which of these does your research address? 25. To what extent does your contributions
7. Why is the problem you have tackled worth generalize?
tackling? 26. Who will be most interested in your work?
8. Who has had the strongest influence on the 27. What is the relevance of your work to other
development of your subject area in theory and researchers?
practice? 28. What is the relevance of your work to
9. Which are the three most important papers practitioners?
that relate to your thesis? 29. Which aspects of your work do you intend to
10. What published work is closest to yours? How publish – and where?
is your work different? 30. Summarise your key findings
11. What do you know about the history of [insert 31. Which of these findings are the most
something relevant]? interesting to you? Why?
12. How does your work relate to [insert 32. How do your findings relate to literature in
something relevant]? your field?
13. What are the most recent major 33. What are the contributions to knowledge of
developments in your area? your thesis?
14. How did your research questions emerge? 34. How long-term are these contributions?
15. What were the crucial research decisions you 35. What are the main achievements of your
made? research?
16. Why did you use this research methodology? 36. What have you learned from the process of
What did you gain from it? doing your PhD?
17. What were the alternatives to this 37. What advice would you give to a research
methodology? student entering this area?
18. What would you have gained by using another 38. You propose future research. How would you
approach? start this?
19. How did you deal with the ethical implications 39. What would be the difficulties?
of your work? 40. And, finally… What have you done that merits
a PhD?
 FORTY QUESTIONS OFTEN ASKED AT THE PHD PROPOSAL DEFENSE
1. What is the research problem? What
phenomenon are you trying to
explain/understand?
2. What is happening "out there" (in the business
world) that makes your research worthwhile?
What practical problems are you trying to solve?
3. What contribution do you expect to make from
this research? What theoretical gaps are you
trying to fill?
4. What are your research questions? Would the
answers to these research questions provide
answers to your research problem?
5. What are your research objectives? Have you
stated them clearly?
6. Can you achieve the understanding of your
research problem through these objectives?
7. Have you defined the important terms used in
your proposal? Whose definitions are you using?
Why?
8. Is this subject of current interest? Why?
9. Have you collected and reviewed enough
literature? Have you been exhaustive in your
literature search?
10. Is your literature current (up-to-date)?
11. Have you included the seminal works in this
area?
12. Have you obtained the local literature on this
topic?
13. Have you reviewed and not merely copied the
literature?
14. Have you written the literature coherently?
15. Have you included in the literature the major
theories, concepts, factors, and variables
connected with your research?
16. Where did you get your research framework? Is
it your own? Why this framework?
17. How do you justify this framework?
18. What's the governing theory/theories underlying
your framework?
19. What are your dependent variables?
20. How do your dependent variables reflect the
phenomenon under study?
21. How do you measure your dependent
variable/s?
22. What are your independent variables?
23. How do you measure these independent
variables? Whose measurements are you using?
Why?
24. Are there moderating variables? Why these
moderators?
25. Are there intervening variables? Why these
intervening variables?
26. What are the expected relationships between
the independent variables and the dependent
variables? Why do you expect these
relationships?
27. Do your hypothesis statements reflect the
relationships shown in your research
model/framework?
28. Are there any definite directions in the
relationships between your dependent variable
and independent variables, emerging from the
literature/ previous writing?
29. What is the unit of your analysis? Individual?
Organizational? Group? Transaction?
30. Are your measurements referring to the same
unit of analysis?
31. What is the population of your sample? What
list/directory you are using?
32. What sampling technique are you going to use?
Why? How are you going to choose the sample
from the population?
33. Are there alternative ways of measuring your
variables? If there are, why choose this one?
34. Why use a five-point scale? Seven-point scale?
Why not use objective data?
35. If you use interval values in your measurements,
what is the significance of the intervals? (e.g. 1 -
50, 51 - 100)?
36. Are there duplicating measurements/variables?
Why?36. How are you going to code each
variable?`
37. Isn't your questionnaire too short! too long?
38. What statistical tool/s are you using to test each
hypothesis?
39. Why do you think this tool is appropriate?
40. Who is your response? Is he/she the most valid answers? Wouldn't he/she be bias
appropriate? Why? Is he/she in a position to give